


Frozen

by idrilhadhafang



Series: TFA Tidbits [5]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Armitage Hux Being An Asshole, Armitage Hux is a Jerk, Force ghost or hallucination? You decide, Gen, Grief, Heavy Angst, Hux is Not Nice, Hypothermia, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Related, Major Character Injury, POV Kylo Ren, character death is han solo, minor Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren, non-TLJ spoilers compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 02:07:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12997494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Kylo Ren grieves.





	Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Hypothermia
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: I didn’t touch much on Han. I figured that Kylo would be feeling a whole slew of emotions and he wouldn’t know which to focus on first.

  
The cold swirls around him, and now that the pressure of having to stay standing throughout the duel is away, he’s starting to realize that the cold is starting to get to him as well. The freezing winter air makes his sliced open face sting, and his clothes are starting to cling to his chest wound as well.

The cold is nothing compared to the emotional pain. He’s not even angry at the scavenger — at Jaina, actually, for that matter — instead, he can’t help but be impressed. He didn’t think she would get that angry. But he doubts he can ever be angry at his tiny cousin, now all grown up and wielding their grandfather’s lightsaber. No, it hurts — hurts that she rejected his offer to become a family again, hurts that she hates him now.

But that’s the life of a Dark Sider, isn’t it? He can remember too well what the Supreme Leader said once. “ _To serve ren is to be alone.”_ Perhaps that is his destiny all along — assuming he doesn’t die with the planet.

Death seems welcoming in that moment. Surrendering to the cold. He’s so cold, and he can’t help but chastise himself for being weak again. Surrendering to physical pain, surrendering to emotional pain —

It’s not just Jaina. It’s his father. He swears that he can feel the last caress of his face that his father gave him, a whisper on the tearing winds of Starkiller, and the tears...

The tears feel like agony incarnate.

Not just physical.

And they’re not stopping. He has to get up. Find Jaina. Save her. Explain everything to her. But it feels like his body’s immobilized by cold. His lightsaber’s out of reach. He’s alone.

He killed his own father...

He’s not alone.

Thomas. He’s here. He’s frozen in time, forever twenty where his old friend is twenty-nine. No, Ben Solo is dead. Dead and buried in the grounds of Yavin IV. Dead in the bloodbath that Kylo Ren created.

“You don’t have to keep doing this.” Thomas says.

“You’re not real.” It has to be a hallucination brought on by the cold. It’s got to be.

“I am. In your mind, in your heart. You don’t have to keep doing this.”

“What do you know about this? Nothing.”

“I know everything. You’ve betrayed yourself, Ben. You’ve betrayed me.”

“Ben Solo is dead,” Kylo argues weakly. His speech is becoming slurred, and he hates it. He wants to get angry, and he knows that he likely looks a pathetic sight, lying there, badly scarred, beaten, tear-stained, things of that nature.

“And you betrayed him,” Thomas says. “Where you once fought to oppose slavery, now you fight alongside slavers, oppressors, and monsters. It’s such a drastic betrayal of your values that your grandfather would be impressed.”

Kylo supposes he should take it as a compliment.

“You betrayed him.”

“He was weak.”

“He wasn’t.”

“I started this...for you...” That’s true enough. If not for Thomas’ death, where would he be, actually?

“And you didn’t have to. I wish I could forget what you did in my name, and what you did in Snoke’s name...but I can’t.”

Thomas vanishes, and Kylo wonders if it was truly a Force Ghost or a hallucination brought on by the cold.

He hears something. A child’s cry. Jaina’s cry. He balances himself on one arm, his good arm, and inches his way forward. He will save her. He will —

Footsteps. Hux. In the midst of his grief and determination, Kylo can’t help but feel exasperation. Exasperation is good. Exasperation means that he is semi-normal, considering what happened. He isn’t broken down. He isn’t —

Hux looks down at him with the sort of scorn you see for a pile of bantha dung you run across. The feeling’s mutual, Kylo finds. Of all the beings to be rescued by while the planet collapses, it has to be General Hux. The redheaded menace. The pathetic wannabe Emperor. He would have preferred Zann Ren or Nali Ren or even Lisaris. Not...him.

“What happened to you, Ren?” No sympathy there, in that voice. Just scorn.

“I have...to get to Jaina.”

“Who is Jaina? Leader Snoke sent me. He says that it’s time for your training to be completed, though you are in quite a sorry state, I say.”

“Jaina Skywalker...is alive...”

“Bloody hell, Ren.”

Even being carried back on a stretcher towards the ship, Kylo knows that even after what Jaina did, he won’t stop looking for her. He’ll explain everything. She needs a teacher, she’s probably one of the last members of his family he has. He’ll find Poe too. Find them both, and reunite with them.

Yes. He can do that.


End file.
